Getting on a tender or approved supplier list means passing the checks of the scheme a buyer uses, and then being known to that buyer before the list is used. In UK power and energy the schemes we checked run from £145 a year to five figures for the largest firms, and four of the nine have no public directory. On 1 October 2026 none of the nine appeared in 168 search results.

Approved supplier lists, frameworks and registers: what’s the difference?

They get lumped together, but they do different jobs, and it pays to know which one you are buying.

  • Prequalification schemes (Achilles UVDB, Constructionline, CHAS, SafeContractor) exist to get you through procurement. A buyer asks for the accreditation so it doesn’t have to check your health and safety, insurance and finances itself.
  • A register decides who may do the work. NERS, run by LRQA for the distribution network operators, is the clearest case: contestable connection work is done by accredited providers, by voltage and scope.
  • A member directory (ECA, BEAMA, AMPS, REA, Solar Energy UK) is a trade body’s list of its members. It helps buyers find you; it doesn’t qualify you for anything.
  • A framework is a buyer’s own arrangement: a set of suppliers appointed for a period, from which the buyer calls off work without running a full tender each time.

A firm can hold all four and still be invisible to a buyer who hasn’t heard of it, which is the problem the rest of this guide deals with.

What does each one cost?

We read each institution’s own live pages on 1 October 2026. Where a body doesn’t publish a fee, the table says so.

InstitutionWho it suitsCost as publishedSource, checked 1 Oct 2026Public, searchable directory?
NERS, run by LRQA for the DNOsAny firm doing contestable connection work (design, project management, cable laying, jointing, substations, overhead lines, civils) by voltage up to 132kV. Recognised by every mainland DNO and required for that work.Not published by LRQA. A management systems consultancy’s guide dated 25 September 2022 estimates “as low as £5K” for design or project management only, up to £20K for all scopes to 132kV. Indicative and four years old.lrqa.com and lrqa.comYes. 538 providers on 1 Oct 2026. Filter by region, voltage and scope, site type. Contact per entry. Sorted by relevance or A to Z, no ranking.
ECA (Electrical Contractors’ Association)Electrotechnical contractors, including high voltage, renewables and energy storage. A separate Commercial Associate tier for manufacturers, distributors and service providers.Contractor membership: not published (enquiry form). Commercial Associate: £725 a year up to £5m turnover, £1,450 for £5m to £12m, £2,900 over £12m, plus VAT.eca.co.uk and eca.co.ukYes. “Find a Member”: by location, 18 work types including High Voltage, turnover band, company name.
BEAMAManufacturers of electrotechnical and energy infrastructure equipment.Not published.beama.org.ukYes. 166 members, filter by product category.
AMPS (the generating set and power systems trade association)UK firms, or overseas firms trading in the UK, that design, manufacture, supply, distribute, deal in or rent generating systems and related equipment; at least 12 months trading.Annual, excluding VAT, by turnover: £825 under £250k; £908 for £250k to £1m; £1,815 for £1m to £5m; £2,118 for £5m to £20m; £2,420 for £20m to £50m; £3,025 for £50m to £150m; £3,388 for £150m to £450m; £3,630 above £500m. Renews 1 January.amps.org.ukYes. About 610 members; search by name, filter by category including Services and Test Equipment.
REA (Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology)Renewable energy and clean technology businesses, including storage.2026, by turnover: £480 sole trader; £980 for £80k to £499k; £1,850 for £500k to £1.5m; £3,250 for £1.5m to £3m; £4,850 for £3m to £5m; £8,850 for £5m to £10m; £12,850 for £10m to £50m; £22,850 for £50m to £250m; £33,850 above. Higher fees from 1 January 2027 (for example £3,550 at £1.5m to £3m). VAT treatment not stated on the page read.r-e-a.netYes. Filter by business area and technology.
Solar Energy UKSolar trade businesses only: developers, installers, manufacturers, distributors, asset owners, O&M.2026, by UK turnover, excluding VAT: Tier 1 £1,440 under £2m; Tier 2 £3,890 for £2m to £10m; Tier 3 £6,780 for £10m to £24m; Tier 4 £9,280 for £25m to £50m; Tier 5 £13,000 for £50m to £100m; Tier 6 £16,680 above £100m; sponsorship tier £30,000. 5 percent off for multi-year terms.solarenergyuk.org and the 2026 fees and terms PDF, solarenergyuk.orgYes. Filter by activity (including O&M and EPC), market and region.
Achilles UVDBSuppliers to UK utilities; high-risk works and services also need a Verify audit.Annual, excluding VAT: £145 for small suppliers (under £1m and under 10 staff); £800 to £1,515 for larger suppliers, by number of commodity codes. Verify audit £375 to £2,635 by category. No joining fee shown.achilles.comNo. Searched by subscribing utility buyers only.
ConstructionlineConstruction suppliers and subcontractors selling to about 10,000 buyers from 3,800 organisations.“From as little as £399 a year”, set by turnover band, plus a one-off joining fee by turnover band (amount not published). Full tier grid not published on the pages read. A free Associate level exists.constructionline.co.ukNo. “Only registered buyers have access to the database.”
CHASContractors and suppliers needing SSIP and Common Assessment Standard prequalification; profiles seen by more than 2,500 client organisations.Shown through a “Get your price” form. Figures from the page’s own pricing data, by headcount, Standard, Advanced, Elite: 0 or 1 staff £429, £659, £949; 10 to 15 staff £1,009, £1,539, £1,879; 16 to 30 £1,179, £1,809, £2,279; 31 to 50 £1,369, £2,139, £2,679; 51 to 100 £1,609, £2,499, £2,969; 101 to 200 £2,529, £3,879, £4,599; 201 to 500 £2,789, £4,269, £5,099. VAT not stated in the data read.chas.co.ukNo open web search. Listed on the CHAS client portal for buyers.
SafeContractorContractors needing SSIP health and safety certification.Per year, “starting from prices for smaller businesses”: Standard £540, Assisted £650, Express £650, Premier £690. Set by employee count; a one-off joining fee also applies (amount not published). VAT not stated on the page read.safecontractor.comNot confirmed. No public search found on the pages read.
DNOs (for example Northern Powergrid, NGED, UK Power Networks)Not a listing. DNO connection pages tell customers they may use an ICP or IDNO for contestable work.Not applicable: there is no route for a supplier to be listed or recommended by a DNO.northernpowergrid.comDNO pages are public. The one checked points to its own alternative-providers page rather than naming firms.
OfgemNot a listing. Regulates connections competition and licenses IDNOs.Not applicable for suppliers. IDNO licence fees not checked.ofgem.gov.ukPublications are public. Names no ICP.

For a firm of 20 to 249 staff, the public trade body listings cost hundreds to low thousands of pounds a year. AMPS is £1,815 to £2,420 for a generator or critical power firm turning over £1m to £50m. NERS has no published fee, and it is the strongest third-party record an ICP can have, because it decides who may do the work.

Which ones can a buyer see?

This is where most firms get less than they paid for. The four prequalification schemes are closed: only subscribing or registered buyers can search them. A buyer outside the scheme can’t see your entry, and neither can a search engine or an AI assistant. The only public trace is what you say about the accreditation on your own site.

The register and the five member directories are public and searchable. NERS is the most detailed of them: each of its 538 entries shows regions, DNO areas, every scope of approval by voltage and a named contact, with no ranking and no ratings.

Almost never. On 1 October 2026 we ran 18 buyer questions across four UK power and energy markets and recorded 168 results. None of the nine membership and prequalification directories appeared in any of them. NERS appeared twice, both times at rank one, and only on the two questions that used its own vocabulary.

Fig 01Search resultsicpn = 10

Buyer question

“ICP for 11kV connection”

What came back

The NERS register ranked first, listing every accredited provider without ranking any. Below it were seven ICPs’ own pages and two product pages from a cable maker, one of the ICP pages a 2017 explainer from a firm since reported wound up.

Sources, by kind

  1. Own pageICPs’ own pages: 7
  2. MakerManufacturer pages: 2
  3. RegisterRegister: 1

Our readingThe register decides who may do the work, but no firm’s page carried the buyer to it, so the shortlist is whoever wrote the clearest page about themselves.

Search results sampled 1 October 2026 through a search tool that runs from the US, not Google UK; one run. Firms described, not named. Method on /how-we-measure.

A listing is not a citation by itself. A register or directory corroborates a firm only if it ranks for the buyer’s question, or if something the buyer does find points to it.

How do you make a listing count?

Point to it. Of five ICPs we sampled from the results, all five claimed NERS accreditation on their own ICP page, and none linked to the register or gave a certificate number. The proof every ICP relies on was one click away, and not one of the five pages made that click for the buyer.

The fixes cost nothing but an afternoon:

  1. Link from each service page to your entry in the register or directory, not to the scheme’s home page.
  2. Give the certificate or membership number and the scope it covers, in text a buyer can copy.
  3. Use the scheme’s vocabulary and the buyer’s plain words on the same page: “NERS accredited ICP” and “new HV connection instead of the DNO”.
  4. Mention the accreditation when you write for the trade press, so a source someone else published says it too.

How do public sector tenders work now?

Public buyers are visibly in this market. On “generator maintenance contract UK”, three public sector tender notices sat in the top five results, above most of the suppliers. Across our five critical power questions there were four tender notices: three on Contracts Finder and one on Find a Tender.

The rules changed on 24 February 2025, when the Procurement Act 2023 came into force. What matters for a supplier, from the Cabinet Office guidance on GOV.UK:

  • Find a Tender is the central digital platform. New procurements are published there, and suppliers register and enter their organisation’s details once: Companies House number, postal address, website, email and the last two years of accounts, among other things.
  • Contracts Finder is now for older procurements. No new procurements are run under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, but the duty to publish on Contracts Finder is unchanged for those that began under them. That is why both portals still turn up in results.
  • Smaller contracts are published too. Below-threshold notices apply from £12,000 for central government and £30,000 for other contracting authorities, and for a regulated below-threshold contract the buyer can’t restrict who may tender by reference to suppliers’ suitability, with some exceptions such as call-offs from a framework.
  • Big buyers publish their plans. A contracting authority that expects to pay more than £100 million in the coming financial year must publish a pipeline notice within 56 days of the year’s start, listing contracts over £2 million it intends to tender.
  • Frameworks run for years. Most may last up to four years; utilities and defence frameworks generally up to eight. An open framework must be reopened at least once in its first three years, and new suppliers can join when it reopens.

Source: GOV.UK, Procurement Act 2023 guidance for suppliers (updated 23 June 2026), Contracts Finder PPN (updated 31 March 2025), below-threshold guidance and frameworks guidance (both updated 13 July 2026), pipeline notice guidance (updated 15 April 2026). All checked 1 October 2026. This is a summary, not legal advice.

How do you get on the list before the tender?

By the time a tender or framework is advertised, the buyer has usually decided what it wants and who it expects to hear from. The work happens earlier.

  • Read the pipeline notices. A large public buyer’s pipeline notice tells you, months ahead, which contracts over £2 million it plans to tender. That is a named account with a date attached.
  • Watch for frameworks reopening. If the framework you need is open, its reopening is the moment to be ready, not a surprise.
  • Talk to the specifier. Consultants and M&E contractors write suppliers into specifications. An application note with ratings and standards they can copy does more than a capability brochure.
  • Approach named accounts directly. For private buyers there is no notice at all. Pick the accounts you want, watch for a signal (a new MD, a show, a hiring round), and write to them before they go to market.

Where to start

Check what a buyer can see of your firm today. The shortlist scorecard asks whether you are in a register or directory your buyers use and whether your own site links to the entry. For a person’s view of how you and three competitors appear for your buyers’ questions, ask for the free teardown, one page within three working days. The register-by-register detail for ICPs and storage firms is in our article on third-party corroboration in energy engineering.

Quick answers

Find out which scheme the buyer uses, because each buyer keeps its own route. Utilities often use Achilles UVDB, construction and facilities buyers often ask for Constructionline, CHAS or SafeContractor, and public bodies publish new tenders on Find a Tender. Pass that scheme’s checks, then make sure the buyer already knows your firm before the list is next refreshed or the framework reopens.

Constructionline says membership costs from as little as £399 a year, set by turnover band, plus a one-off joining fee by turnover band. The joining fee amount and the full tier grid were not published on the pages we read on 1 October 2026. A free Associate level also exists.

LRQA, which runs NERS for the DNOs, does not publish a fee. A management systems consultancy’s guide dated 25 September 2022 estimated as little as £5,000 for design or project management only, up to £20,000 for all scopes to 132kV. Treat that as an old, indicative estimate, not a price.

Both are prequalification schemes that contractors buy to pass health and safety checks under SSIP. CHAS also offers the Common Assessment Standard and says profiles are seen by more than 2,500 client organisations; its live pricing data on 1 October 2026 started at £429 a year. SafeContractor’s starting prices for smaller businesses ran from £540 to £690 a year, plus a joining fee it did not publish.

Only subscribing utility buyers can. The UVDB is not a public directory, so a buyer outside it, and any search engine or AI assistant, cannot see your entry. Its only public trace is what you say about your own accreditation.

Sources

  1. LRQA, NERS, National Electricity Registration Scheme, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  2. LRQA, NERS register, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  3. ECA, Join us: electrotechnical contractors, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  4. ECA, Industry suppliers and service providers (Commercial Associate), checked 1 Oct 2026.
  5. BEAMA, Member directory, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  6. AMPS, Join AMPS, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  7. REA, Our membership fees, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  8. Solar Energy UK, Become a member, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  9. Solar Energy UK, Membership fees and terms and conditions 2026, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  10. Achilles, UVDB membership pricing and features, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  11. Constructionline, Supplier FAQs, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  12. CHAS, How to join CHAS, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  13. SafeContractor, Contractor pricing plans, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  14. Northern Powergrid, New connections, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  15. Ofgem, Open letter on IDNOs, October 2023, checked 1 Oct 2026.
  16. GOV.UK (Cabinet Office), The Procurement Act 2023: a short guide for suppliers (updated 23 June 2026), checked 1 Oct 2026.
  17. GOV.UK (Cabinet Office), Update to legal requirements to publish procurement information on Contracts Finder (updated 31 March 2025), checked 1 Oct 2026.
  18. GOV.UK (Cabinet Office), Guidance: below-threshold contracts (updated 13 July 2026), checked 1 Oct 2026.
  19. GOV.UK (Cabinet Office), Guidance: pipeline notice (updated 15 April 2026), checked 1 Oct 2026.
  20. GOV.UK (Cabinet Office), Guidance: frameworks (updated 13 July 2026), checked 1 Oct 2026.